Pale Beside
by anotheropti
Summary: Andy Dwyer is jobless, recently dumped, and technically homeless. At least he plays in the most amazing band in the world, though. When he meets the singer of an awful gothy-electronic band who challenges him on that notion, things get a bit difficult. And cool. Mostly cool. **Rival Bands, Ace April AU**
1. D Minor

**A/N:** _Thank you so much to Nat for helping me. I'm calling you my beta on this one because without you, this wouldn't exist! This is already complete, I just need to do some editing along the way and I'll be posting every Friday! We don't want another Forever Enough situation on our hands do we?_

* * *

On the corner of a lightless street in Pawnee, Indiana there's a little ramp that leads down into what had previously been the only nightclub in town. The Lunge sits alongside the rest of the stretch of rundown establishments and sports bars, pretending it isn't on its last legs. Despite the large bouncer staring down anyone who attempted to break the meager line and the velvet gate barring foot traffic from the carpet, the inside of it wasn't as booming as the exterior let on. Other than the dilapidated lights, some stuck between color oscillations and giving off a nauseating mixture, and the equally worn down floor that was now clearly visible with only a few dancers there The Lunge only had live music going for it. As it turned out that seemed to be just as much its downfall as it was originally a crowd-pleaser, and most people that wanted to go to a sleazy club didn't want to hear any particular music at all – just something loud, bass heavy, and indistinguishable from the next song.

Waiting in front, Andy Dwyer tried to remember why he's even going to the club that night. Nothing seemed that great about being surrounded by way too many people, grinding on him and making him sweat more than even he was used to, listening to some terrible band in their last ditch effort to try and drum up some excitement for the club and their dying popularity.

Andy knew that all too well – his band, Mouse Rat, had played there once before and it was never the sign of a band on the rise. Soon after that Andy was sent into a spiral over the sudden breakup with his longtime girlfriend at the time, Ann. He didn't like playing with his band so much after that, given the circumstances, and kept to himself by wandering around the city at night until he was so tired he slept on a bench or in an alley.

After figuring out that his band mate and friend had been essentially homeless, Burly let him stay on the couch indefinitely. Like most things, however, his stay was becoming more and more unwelcome as Andy seemingly refused to find a job and struggled to find a reason to even practice with the band anymore let alone search for gigs and play them. Trying to get him out of the slump, Burly had told Andy to meet up with him and his new, rich girlfriend at The Lunge and that he could drink on his tab for a few nights if he wanted to.

"Can I see your ID?" the guy twice as wide as and a little taller than Andy asked him.

"Really, you need to card me?" Andy said incredulously. "Dude, I've been here before. I've played here before."

"There's a lot of people trying to get in with the worst fakes I've ever seen," the bouncer explained with a blank expression, "so look man, this is easy. You show me your ID, you get in. Nobody's in there, but I can't just eyeball you."

Looking behind him, Andy saw that there were only two or three people waiting for him. The rest of the bars, especially any place with TV's stuck on ESPN, were crowded and lively. Sighing, Andy dug through his back pocket, passing up gum wrappers and empty bags of Skittles to find his wallet. After more fumbling, he finally walked down the ramp and through the door into the club.

Inside, everything was as lonely and depressing as he expected – grimy floors with only a few incredibly drunk people dancing belligerently on one another, a bored bartender serving people actually at the bar and sitting, and the terrible live band to top it all off. He knew what to expect in places like this when it came to the music. Mostly it was just hit fodder, hyper aggressive dub, or drop-heavy house music he generally filtered out, but that night the band sounded a special kind of boring. At least that music sounded kind of fun, something Andy could get into for a moment, but the placid beat and horribly electronic sound coming at him then were a new level of annoying. Thankfully the live performance was opposite the bar so Andy never had to look the absolutely murky sounding band in the eyes while they droned on. He noted that everything just sounded bored from the drummer to what sounded like a sole sampler and the tired rumblings of the girl singing for them.

"Hey man," Burly waved him over with his new girlfriend on the stool beside him. "Surprised you made it, to be honest."

"Hey Andy," the girl said.

"And pass up on free drinks?" Andy ignored her and grinned at the idea of drinking until he passed out for the first time in a while. "Yeah, I'll definitely make it here. I'll even listen to this crappy band for a free beer."

"I dunno, they seem all right," Burly shrugged.

"They sound like a cat getting run over," Andy laughed, taking the seat next to Burly and ordering his first drink.

"Yeah, I guess," and then things between them quieted for a while.

The first beer went down in only a few minutes and Andy was already feeling the bitter hops overload in the back of his throat, waiting for the sweetness that a vaguely empty mind combined with drunken stupor could only give him. After a few minutes of drinking by himself, Burly clearly more interested in the woman than in Andy, the music seemed less obnoxious as it faded into the back of his mind. Before when it sounded dreary and far too kitschy for his tastes, a little alcohol was already starting to make it just irritating.

Not as irritating as the constant barrage of thoughts about Ann. She kept trying to explain to him why they broke up, but the whole time all Andy could think about was how stupid all of this was. All he did was fake a double-cast for so long that it resulted in a dramatic rift between the two of them. That's all. Thinking on it again, Andy realized that was a bit more than "something small" but he just chalked that up to the beer talking.

Not long after that, Burly and his girlfriend disappeared from beside Andy. That was okay, since the tab was still open and Andy only had four or five beers – he lost track of how many exactly. Whatever time it was, it seemed like the band had stopped playing finally and all he had to worry about now was the growing bitterness with every drink. When he went to order a whiskey to top everything off, someone spoke up from beside him for the first time.

"Make it two," she said, sitting down next to Andy.

Turning to look at the newcomer, Andy saw mostly a curtain of incredibly dark hair hiding the face of a woman. Behind the wall of hair, and when she gave him a grimace that told him to back off, she had a permanently sour expression and shockingly large, brown eyes – the kind that catch you off guard by the sheer breadth, or in this case lack of, emotion behind them. These ones were telling Andy not to say a word to her. She looked the part of a troubled, extraordinarily pretty, and likely angry person that Andy usually tried to avoid. So, being drunk and tilted on memories of Ann, he tried to talk to her anyways.

"Hey," he started with a casual grin and a slur to his words he couldn't hear.

"No," the girl said before she slammed her shot. "Two more."

He still couldn't place why he wanted to keep talking to her, but Andy was starting to get bored with his minimal drinking. At least this girl seemed ready to take as many shots as her small frame could handle. Andy partly wanted to see how many she could do and how many he could get through without collapsing on the spot from alcohol poisoning. Either way it ended up, things would definitely be more interesting.

"I didn't even do mine yet," Andy motioned with the shot and finished his. "It's on my friend Burly's tab anyways, so I got you."

"I didn't say one was for you," she finally turned to look at him and Andy grinned at her funny, bland drawl. "But I'll take free drinks any day."

"That's what I said!" he laughed.

"I'm still not talking to you," she said contradictorily.

"Okay," Andy mumbled and nodded gravely, turning back to the new shot in front of him.

With some sense of sobriety left in him, Andy noted something familiar in the girl's voice but gave up trying to figure it out. Thoughts of Ann were being washed away with the liquor, the sweet sound of silence, and the occasional murmur from Andy's new drinking partner. The others that were in the club, the handful of drunks on the trashed dance floor and the band, were all gone and showed just how gross the place was underneath even a handful of sweating bodies.

The bar was a mess, the stools were a recent addition with the thinning crowds and reliance on live music, and the only people left inside were Andy and the girl and the bartender. The turnout couldn't have been good enough to allow two people to sit and drink idly, but still they sat and downed three more shots before Andy felt a dry weakness in his head.

"I think I'm out," he made a show of blinking slowly, his head spinning.

"That was four shots. What a wimp," she complained with a heavy slur while drinking her last but still sitting down. "Ugh, I think I am too."

"That was pretty good, though… y'know? Like, you did pretty good," he repeated.

"Gee, thanks," she deadpanned and Andy laughed, eliciting a very brief movement from her lips that was more alarming than it should have been.

"I'm just glad that band stopped playing," Andy continued, rubbing his eyes.

"Oh really, why's that?" a new, sudden tone was in her voice and when Andy looked at her the trace of a smile was replaced with a withering glare.

"They were super boring," he told her, blinking and trying to focus on her increasingly agitated features.

"I'm sure you can do so much better," she scolded him.

"Well, my band is way better," he responded, scratching his face and squinting at her.

"Yeah?" she crossed her arms with a little trouble, hooking her fingers on the sleeve of her shirt. "What's your band?"

"Mouse Rat," Andy immediately said with a proud smile, "and we're the best rock band in Pawnee."

"Wow, you guys got some awesome competition," she said in that same bored tone that told Andy she was probably super good at sarcasm.

"If our competition is bands like that one we're doing pretty good!" Andy laughed again, ignoring how visibly annoyed the girl was.

"I'm pretty sure my band actually gets gigs," she lashed out finally, those eyes clear in their directed fury. "Like this one. And we actually got paid. You're sitting in here drinking with the successful one."

"Oh, whoops. Hah!" Andy chuckled, trying to figure out why this girl was acting so strange. "Oh, you're that singer? Huh, wow."

"Whatever," she turned back to the bar and held onto the edge of it, swaying.

Andy stopped laughing then, because now he finally understood that she was actually mad. The singer wasn't the worst person to drink with, and unless Andy was horribly blinded by whiskey she seemed to enjoy it to whatever extent someone so obviously infuriated at the entire universe could, but he knew what it was like to be compared to Mouse Rat. They were the greatest band in the world, obviously, so she must have just been feeling down about how her band – Andy couldn't remember the name – stacked up to them.

"Hey, what's your band's name again?" Andy rolled his lips, savoring the warmth of them rubbing together.

"I didn't tell you," she turned after a few seconds of silence. "Why do you care anyways? We're just gonna make fun of each other."

"What? No, that's impossible," Andy laughed.

"You literally just made fun of my band," the girl crooked her eyebrow and gave him an attempt at a pointed look.

"Just tell me. C'mon, I'm super good at naming bands," Andy moved closer to her, gesturing with his hand like he wanted her to tell him a secret. "C'mon, it'll be fun."

"Yeah great name, Mouse Rat," the girl gave a minute chuckle before looking at Andy and biting her lip. "Flyover State."

"What?" Andy asked, unsure if that was supposed to be some code word or the band name.

"That's the name – Flyover State. Y'know, like those stupid Midwest states no one cares about because they're super boring and everyone that lives there sucks?" she explained, rambling on the reason they named the band that.

"That's… not bad!" Andy admitted. "Y'think it's all bland and cows down there but once you get to know 'em it's awesome too, but in it's own way… like your music!"

"Yeah," the girl nodded, giving Andy a confused look now. "Yeah, that's it."

"See, I know stuff," Andy sat back in his stool and nearly toppled if it wasn't for the edge of the bar. "You should come see Mouse Rat sometime, we're pretty awesome."

"When's your next show?" the singer asked and whether she was being sarcastic or not, Andy couldn't tell.

"Actually… we don't know," Andy admitted, chuckling when the girl broke a small smile and then realizing how much of a bummer that realization was. "I could definitely tell you when we know."

"Yeah, you could," she nodded, "but why would I let you tell me?"

"No idea," Andy shrugged. "Figured you'd want to hear the best music of all time. Well, not the best because Pearl Jam did that-"

"Ew," she grimaced. "I already don't want to listen to your band, dude."

"Oh," Andy stopped suddenly. "Okay, cool."

"I'm kidding," she amended. "What's your number? Just text me when you have a show next and I'll make fun of your stupid rat band."

Andy hurriedly pulled his phone out and was met with actual laughter from the girl at the old flip phone he was still using. After putting in her number, he tried to remember what her name was while staring at the contacts screen.

"Am I supposed to just call you singer chick?" he pointed to the screen. "I'm Andy."

"Cool," she stood up and walked away from him to the dance floor, clearly avoiding him.

"Hey, seriously what's your name?" he shouted after her.

But the girl simply walked out of the club, briskly and without as much of a stumble as Andy knew he was going to have. Telling the bartender to close his tab, Andy managed to jostle himself out of the stool before getting outside himself. The blast of cold air sent a bit of the drunken haze away, clearing his mind and making it easier to pull his phone out and call the cab service he knew wouldn't just be waiting around the bars. Sitting on the bench near the bus stop just a block down from The Lunge, Andy wondered if he would ever hear from that girl again at all.

He wondered if he texted her an actual show date if she would be there and if they'd drink again, make fun of stupid things, and walk away strangers. For some reason he couldn't quite grasp Andy didn't like that thought much, but the blurriness of his thoughts was interrupted by a dull vibration in his pocket. Pulling out his phone, he scanned the text from "Singer Chick." He expected a brief message telling him never to call her and get rid of her number. Instead of that, the text was only one word:

 _April._

* * *

 **a/n2:** _Title for the fic taken from the lyric "Rationale and rhyme and reason/Pale beside a single kiss" from the Sisters of Mercy song,_ Some Kind of Stranger.

 _Sisters of Mercy makes a great comparison for April's band, for what it's worth._


	2. A Major

**A/N:** _Changing the post schedule to better fit with how my December usually goes._

 _Expect an update every 4-5 days at this point!_

* * *

The following week was, for Andy, bizarre.

After the night of far too much drinking with the strange Singer Chick - April, her name was - he tried to explain to Burly that if he just had another few days to go find somewhere to work, anywhere, he'd pick some of the slack on the rent. They left it at that in the morning and Andy took his time carefully scrubbing out past messages from Ann out of his phone, a daily ritual that only got harder with each passing day. There were loving morning texts, image files that didn't load properly on his phone and he had to do some sort-of black magic to make appear, and then the string of arguments that started that he had the most issue deleting.

He could bleed his past of the good times but all the bad times stung. Small things like forgetting to clean up before she got home from her stressful job as a nurse to the downright disastrous like faking his broken leg for as long as possible all fed into someone that eventually hated him. The heavy weight of the anchor around his neck, his own stupid decisions, made ridding himself of those memories even more difficult. He was beginning to fade out into reverie when he faintly caught the sound of someone yelling at him.

"Hey, Andy," Burly broke him from the daze of the morning with another annoyed shout.

"Sorry, I was just..."

"Man just try to look today, okay?" his friend sighed and slumped his shoulders. "Stop thinking about her for a second, dude... and don't forget about practice at six."

Andy waved him off and mimicked Burly's sigh from just a moment before. They were both tired of this situation. Andy was tired of feeling like a mooch to every single person in his life - Ann, his mom, his brothers, Burly - and just wanted this all to change. Glancing back at his phone and seeing no new messages from the mystery singer, April, he stared at the paper stacked before him.

He scoured the confidential ads from the pile of newspapers in his room that had appeared after a long night of drinking and stealing their neighbors' daily mail. There wasn't much else to do, at least. Burly took his laptop to work with him so Andy couldn't sit around watching cute dog videos all day and even if he had tried to look up online postings he isn't sure he'd ever find anything. Instead, he circled a few that seemed doable and rifled through his belongings until he found an unstained pair of khakis. They would have to do.

The first job with an opening was the little boutique luthier shop on the Eagleton side of town. Andy always bought his guitars from friends second-hand or from the Pawnee mom and pop store so his experience there was almost nil and it showed. When he got there, Andy noticed a mysterious lack of guitars.

"So," the owner, Franklin, crossed his arms across from the desk in the back office. "You don't know a single thing about violins."

He was a luthier of expensive and sought after Eagletonian violins. At least, that's what he told Andy when they started the interview. Andy wasn't sure what to believe considering he knew nothing of anything that this guy was talking about. He figured that maybe this would be a cashier job at a guitar store before this whole mess of an interview. He wasn't even dressed properly - khakis compared to the blazers and fancy shirts of every single person working there.

"Correct," Andy answered with his hands fidgeting by his knees.

"You really don't know what this is?" he lifted what looked to Andy like a stick with weird wire stretched over it like a taut guitar string.

"Nope."

"This?" Franklin drew a violin from a hanging stand on the nearest wall. He presented it to Andy.

"Oh, I know that," Andy laughed. Maybe this would be the perfect fit after all.

"Thank God," Franklin joined him and set the violin back where it belonged. It took him too long to do it, chuckling throwing off his otherwise cautious hands. "I didn't think you'd even know what it was!"

"Yeah, I mean... who doesn't know what a fiddle is?" Andy shook his head and didn't realize for a moment that the only person laughing in the room was him all of a sudden. He paused and met Franklin's deadly gaze.

"A _what_?"

"A... fiddle?"

Franklin stood up and jabbed a finger towards the entrance. "This interview is over."

"But-" Andy tried to fight his way through this confusing change of pace. What was so insulting about fiddles?

"Get out before I call security," Franklin growled without an ounce of humor behind it.

"Okay, okay..."

And so Andy had left the Eagleton side of town for the only posting there with nothing but a bit of crushed hope and two other prospects in mind. The next was a dud, a fast food joint that was already capped out by the time Andy arrived. Apparently the recent surge in Sweetums jobs left a lot of unskilled work in sudden demand. Either they were telling the truth, and Andy couldn't tell if any of those words were even real to be honest, or it was a conspiracy to get him kicked out of his friend's house and onto the streets. Even Andy knew _that_ was ridiculous no matter the tiny, weak voice saying that maybe the world was against him.

With all of that behind him and a few blocks to walk to his final destination, Andy sighed at the last opportunity he had spotted. He had worked in the service industry twice before and barely wanted to go back, so that burger place was his absolute last ditch effort. And yet, underneath all of that was yet another opening somewhere even worse than in the service industry. Somewhere Andy never thought he'd set foot again: Pawnee's Saint Joseph Hospital.

The two positions open were nurse's assistant, something he was apparently qualified for if the requirement of a high school diploma was true, and janitorial work. He'd never done the latter, so assistant it was.

The last person he wanted to run into here, though, was Ann Perkins. His ex-girlfriend worked here and after a morning cleansing his whole vibe could be ruined. Andy set about filling his application out and waiting around, tapping his feet on the pristine floors as nurses he only half-knew whispered about him behind his back on the way to their destinations and the small Human Resources department employees gave him searching, foul looks. It took him a minute to realize he needed to go home after a kind faced, blonde woman who had an American flag pinned to the lapel of her suit jacket let him know they'd call back if he was considered for any positions currently open.

With an awkward laugh he thanked her with a hand shake like he was told to do, a glance to see her name, and finally, "Thanks, uh... Leslie. Ma'am."

She smiled without anything but a slight wince at the last addition and waved Andy off. For now, he would have to wait and hope. Hope that just maybe he could get his life back on track.

* * *

Andy returned to Burly's place with the kick in his step from two potential jobs waiting for him at a hospital he'd otherwise despise and a grin stuck to his face the whole way. He waved at random passersby without much thought for anything else, and things were beginning to feel right again. He glanced at his phone and saw a text from that girl, April. She had sent him something his phone couldn't process so he quickly replied.

 _I can't tell what you sent :P_

With a smile, he flipped the phone closed. Everything felt right at least until he remembered about a dozen steps from the house that he was about fifteen minutes late for their previously scheduled band practice. The panic dawning on him in a flash, Andy ran inside. Burly was tuning and strumming, Chang sat on the floor with his legs crossed and bass upright between them, and Rivers tapped out loud exercise rhythms Andy could hear from just outside the house. Their practice space - a garage baffled to hell with soundproofing and blankets piled up _everywhere_ \- could mask the majority of their playing and their neighbors were thankfully fine with biweekly explosion of sound for a few hours.

Burly stared at him and shook his head. "Where were you?"

"I was... actually at an interview," Andy fumbled around through the blankets for the setup he had refused to sell for years. He set the amplifier to standby, waiting. "For a job. At the hospital. I might become a nurse, or something."

"You have to go to school for that," Rivers monotoned loudly over his paradiddle.

"Well, maybe I'll become a doctor then," Andy laughed and slung his guitar over his shoulder.

"Can we play?" Chang piped up as he stood, groaning loudly. He craned his neck and a loud pop cut through the hiss of amps warming up and the snare drum beating. "I'm tired of waiting. Cool on you for getting a job, Andy."

"Hey, thanks-"

Rivers interrupted with a loud crack of his snare and stared at Andy.

The practice went as usual. They had a small number of originals they had been working on, refining to the point of separate guitar harmonies and different vocal parts for Burly and Andy. It was shaping up to be an awesome song. Catchy, melodic, and best of all? It sounded kinda like it fell out of 1999. To Andy, nothing was better. Even as they sweat through some of the faster sections of songs Andy could feel that spirit return. His voice felt natural again, his urge to drink died, and his phone buzzed three times. He kept count with it like an off-time, irregular metronome until their last song ended.

They debated a few covers and decided they could probably cook up another minute to tighten themselves up to a solid half-hour if they wanted. The mere thought, the thrill of the stage and the stench of booze and shouting and people discovering their band for the first time, all melted into this energy that flowed through Andy.

He strummed harder than he should have. He sang louder than usual. They all laughed when Andy swung his guitar down by the neck just a bit too hard and the strap came off completely at the post, torn at one end. Everything felt right.

While Rivers took his usual break and chugged more water than was likely in the entirety of the Pawnee-Eagleton reservoir, Andy felt another buzz of his phone. April had left him four messages.

 _Are you an old man?_

 _Oh right, you have an old man phone._

 _I think old men are cool btw_

He chuckled and continued reading the tightly spaced texts. He could hear her dour demeanor in the messages and for whatever reason, they made him want to hide his phone from the rest of the band. It felt strange, he was supposed to be pining over Ann. Yet here he was and, without realizing it, the adrenaline from playing renewed and reinvigorated with his band spilled over into this conversation. This person he didn't really know. This weirdo that sang deep and dark songs set to electronic noise with strange drumming was making him laugh and blush to himself.

That last text, though? That one could have killed him.

 _at practice, dont answer those!_

That took him back. Turning to the sound of a cymbal being tapped, waiting, Andy set his phone down on the work bench that Burly never used. They would do one more run of their practice set in relative peace. When it was over, Andy made to grab the phone.

"Hey, did I tell you guys about what I heard at work?" Chang was _always_ sure to bring up his job at the Larry Joe Bird Municipal Landfill like it was some kind of royalty around Pawnee. Which, frankly, it kinda was.

"Nope," Rivers left his kit mostly intact save for a few cymbals and covered the whole thing with a thick tarp.

"They're hosting a fundraiser and they want live music for the potluck," Chang said it with such enthusiasm Andy could feel it too despite being asked to play for actual trash.

"That'd be cool. We haven't gotten a gig since..." Andy trailed off and chuckled. "That'll be cool."

"Yeah," Burly gave Andy a sideways glance and nodded with him.

When it was settled, and the rest of the band left save for Burly who went to crash immediately afterward, Andy picked up his phone and tapped away without any thought for what he was saying.

 _Were gunna play landfill on Wednesday. U comin?_

Andy waited for her response in the cold garage, still tapping his foot to the timing of the beat of _Remember._ It was going to be the most kickass song they ever played, he ever wrote, and eventually he'd figure out why singing it never hurt like his past love songs about Ann. He stared at his phone, impatient for April's response, wondering why this song so clearly about Ann wasn't painful.

Why did it feel like hope? Just then, his phone vibrated again.

 _Can I make fun of you guys?_

 _I was hoping u would_

 _Cool_

That was all she sent before another one of those weird images that didn't process quite right came through. He meant to say something to her, remind her that he couldn't tell what she was saying, when another text popped up. This time, it mimicked the way he wrote his own little faces like Ann taught him years and years ago. He laughed to himself at the image of a little letter P sticking its tongue out at him and Andy wondered again why this felt so natural.

He concluded this was just an amazing day, is all. He was cleaning his phone of traces of Ann, putting in the most amazing resume anyone had ever seen in the history of the world, and playing with the coolest rock band on the planet while finishing the song that would send them from literal nowhere to an actual gig. At a landfill. What more was there to ask for? Andy didn't even bother to note the fact that the singer he insulted recently wanted to come see his band and make fun of them at a fundraiser.

Nothing could go wrong now. Right?


	3. C Major

**A/N:** _Contains recreational drug use (just some pot, don't die on me now)_

* * *

The morning of the show at the Landfill, everything in life was right. His new friend April was going to come see them that day and the worst part of the day was already almost over. Waking up, staring at his phone and wondering what the hell do about the remaining mementos of Ann in his life was all he had left. After the adrenaline fueled night with the band and telling Chang to score them that part if he could - which he was always so good at doing, it was like three-fourths of the reason he was in the band - Andy wound down again.

Checking his voicemail for anything, unsure whether this was a dying reflex of waiting for Ann to say something to him, Andy saw an unusual number. Listening to the message, his heart thudded faster than even that refueled love for the band.

"Hello, Mr. Dwyer. This is Leslie Knope from the Saint Joseph's Hospital Human Resources department," her voice crackled through into his ear and Andy recognized it as the blonde woman that scooted him out of the building after he dropped off his resume. He wondered how much longer he'd have to go without a job. Without anything that could show Ann he was worth something again. "We sent this message to the email address you provided, but just in case I decided to call. We'd like you to come in this Wednesday for an interview about the nurse's assistant position. Please call back or send an email to confirm."

His jaw dropped when she left a pleasant goodbye and the message ended. His heart beat into the veins in his temples, pulsing into a headache in seconds. He could almost scream. Standing up in a hurry, he rushed into a pair of jeans and slicked his hair back with his hands. He tried to get all the cowlicks out of there but it was a useless endeavor. Calling the Knope lady's number back, Andy took a deep breath.

When she answered, Andy almost yelled, "Hello, this is Andy Dwyer for the nurse's job."

"Oh, hello Andy... um, the assistant position?" she corrected and Andy nodded and mumbled a confirmation. "Will you be free today? Say, twelve-thirty?"

"Yes! I can do that. Absolutely, thank you so much," Andy said. He hurried through the house looking for his car keys while he made the appointment for an interview.

This was it, really. After this, Ann would have to take him back, right? He was getting a job, and they would be working together, and his band was getting gigs on top of that. He was going to get a few pay checks there and then he would be a rock star. It was the perfect path to stardom, the perfect future.

* * *

After the interview, and learning that a nurse's assistant or orderly was a job where he'd get to do a bunch of heavy lifting and little work here and there after _so_ much training it made his head spin, Andy Dwyer had a job.

The first person he called was Burly, telling him that he'd be able to help with rent in a little while. Just the notion of being able to do this was enough to rebuild Andy's self-esteem. Ann didn't pick up when he called, so he sent a text saying exactly the same thing as he told Burly. Minus the rent, of course. It took him a second to make sure he hadn't. He invited her to the show that day without any hope of her ever appearing for it. Now, all he had to do was go to the Landfill Potluck and set his gear up.

As he pulled into the little field set aside for the party, Andy spotted Rivers setting up his kit. Chang was nearby, talking to someone that wore the same dull blue buttoned shirt he did with the same logo on the back. It was an offset black outline of who everyone assumed was Larry Bird with the words _Municipal_ and _Landfill_ above and below his face, respectively. When Andy made to open his trunk to get his equipment, someone's quiet voice interrupted him.

"Hey," it was April. "When does your dumb band play?"

She was standing there wearing pretty much the same thing as she wore that night at the bar. He thought the all-black was a stage getup but apparently she went around wearing wedge heels and tight black clothing. He smiled at her and she gave him nothing in response. He liked to imagine April could manage a smile.

"Uh, I think in like ten minutes or something," he said and stood there with the amp in his hand growing heavier by the second. "Did you bring anything for the potluck?"

"Does pot count?" she asked in that matter-of-fact drone he could almost hear the keyboards playing against.

"Hmm, probably not," Andy shook his head. "You should ask Chang's boss, though. Maybe it'd be cool."

"I didn't plan on sharing. Maybe if Derek had come, but... well, I'm the only one here," she sighed and looked back to where the rest of Mouse Rat was setting up.

"Who's Derek?" Andy asked.

"My drummer," she answered without looking back. "And boyfriend, I thought. But apparently _Ben_ is too much fun."

"Who's that?" Andy started to walk towards the rest of the party and April followed. All these new names were starting to get confusing.

"Derek's boyfriend."

"Wait, I thought-"

"Eh, I made out with Derek and then he'd go home with Ben," she said it like that wasn't the most annoying setup possible. Really, Andy couldn't tell what her inflection on most things was - mostly sour, mostly monotone.

"Oh, you, uh... you do that then? Like, multiple people?" Andy had heard of that before in his year of college but April was the first person since then.

"Nah, not really. It was fun, but not for me," April shrugged and bit her lip. Her voice took on a curious lilt he didn't know how to place then. "Do you? Like, poly stuff?"

"Oh, I don't think so," Andy was busy setting down the amp that now felt like it weighed a ton when he thought about it. "I guess I never thought about it, but I knew a girl in college that did."

"Oh yeah? Did you, um, date her or-?"

"No, just a friend," Andy was starting to wonder where this line of questioning came from. "Hey, since Derek isn't here you can totally enjoy the show by yourself!"

"Ugh."

There it was. Andy grinned when she scoffed and marched away.

After finishing the setup, Andy rendezvoused with the others to make sure things seemed fine. Chang had made sure that they would be okay to play here and they might get paid twenty bucks each if they don't annoy the entire crowd. As far as Andy was concerned, that sounded like a challenge made to be won. And there was no way that this version of Mouse Rat could fail.

While middle-aged accountants and managers sat on one side with their plates held by napkin-ready hands, just far enough away to avoid fraternizing was the obvious blue-collar workers. They didn't care to wait for the band to play. They talked among themselves and ate, laughing, and Andy could almost feel the good energy coming off of them. That feeling of being away from work and enjoying time off, enjoying communal food, it was all enough to elicit a smile. And between those two sets of people, April sat on a small plaid blanket, her plate of pork and vegetables and weird casserole sitting beside her.

Andy caught her staring at them getting ready, caught her eye and shared that for a moment before she looked back to her plate and picked at the food there.

Caught her staring and looked away to see Ann standing at the edge of the field. She wasn't smiling, but she was there. He tried to wave to her but she must not have seen him somehow since she didn't wave back. Instead, she simply watched. Hearing the grumbling of everyone else in the band and the employees waiting impatiently for them to play - and the icy cold stare from April now cutting through the noise - Andy kicked it off with the opening to that song, _Remember._

The show went fine enough. They were well-rehearsed and only a few flubs made their way into the performance. Several times throughout the songs, Andy would lock eyes with April. They would share the strange embrace and he would smile. She would keep looking up at him without a movement of her lips, or a word, or any excitement. But she kept that eye contact. Almost everyone in the small crowd cheered after the set, smiles on their faces. Almost, he noted. Everyone except for two people - Ann, who was no longer standing so far away like some sort of stalker and found a chair by the band's makeshift stage to sit; and, April, who booed through the entirety of the cheering. When they were done, she didn't smile. She seemed disgusted with the music, but never took her eyes off of Andy.

A woman who was apparently Chang's boss approached them afterward with a few bills in her hand. "Everyone wanted to chip in for the concert. Good show, boys."

"Thanks, ma'am," Andy said with a smile and took his share of the profit - _thirty bucks_ , he thought to himself with a massive grin on his face.

After some small talk with Chang's boss, Andy caught April out of the corner of his eye. She was standing, fidgeting with her fingers a few feet away from him. She made to say something and then sighed before returning to her tiny picnic setup with the plate of half-finished food. The employees were shuffling off into the night, leaving the landfill in a caravan of vehicles. The white-collar workers had all but left, Chang and his boss the only two remainders of that crew.

Andy joined April at her spot, unable to find Ann anywhere, and sat in the grass.

"So, how was the show?" he asked her with an unbreakable smile.

"Awful," she said instantly.

"What? No way, this was way better than your band," he said with a laugh. He would defend Mouse Rat if they could score thirty bucks a pop just from one little show. It was a dream come true. "At least we sound good."

"You sound like a bunch of tired dads," April scoffed. She took a bite of a something-casserole and grimaced. "Ew, this stuff is all cold now. Why did I let you talk me into coming here."

"Sorry, I figured you'd wanna come make fun of us."

"Which I did."

"It was fun, right?" Andy asked, sitting up and unsure why he needed that validation from her. She had _just_ insulted them, after all. "I mean, you got to see the greatest rock band in the world. I don't blame you if you're a bit starstruck."

"Yeah, right," April rolled her eyes and Andy didn't know why, but that made him smile. Maybe it was the slight movement of her lips again, maybe it was the way she said it with another scoff. "Oh, please let me be your groupie!"

"Hey-" Andy meant to tell her to stop it, but a familiar voice interrupted him.

"Now you've got _groupies_?"

Andy turned to see Ann staring down at the two of them.

"Oh, hey Ann. No, this is my, uh, friend, April," he nodded to April who was giving Ann something he could only describe as a death glare. Even though it wasn't aimed at him, he could almost feel an ice cold knife spreading his chest apart from that look alone. It was a visceral look, and it was definitely all April. "We're just making jokes."

"Yeah, jokes," April chimed in with a steady and affected, deep voice.

"Okay..." Ann eventually looked at Andy, shook her head as if to rid some thought from her mind, and continued. "So, I got your message. I didn't realize you were playing shows again."

"Oh yeah, Mouse Rat is gonna be huge," Andy said with a grin. "Probably the biggest band in the world."

"Second biggest," April told him as if to clarify something.

"Right," Ann nodded. "So, why did you invite me here? Just to see you guys play? It was pretty good, I guess but-"

"I wanted to tell you that I got a job, y'know, like in my message," Andy said. He didn't stand up but could feel the weird aura coming from sitting in the grass next to a cool girl who hated his band while he talked to his ex in the calmest way he could muster. "Since, y'know, that's what you said I needed to do. So I did it. Can I come back home now?"

"Seriously, Andy? That's what this was about?" Ann didn't raise her voice but her face was pure disappointment. Disapproval. Next to him, April grumbled something about being confused. "I thought you were inviting me as a friend, y'know. That maybe we could get past this and just be normal friends and not-"

"I got a job at the hospital," Andy blurted out.

"You _what_?" Ann's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets.

"As an orderly, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't... weird, that we'd be working in the same place," Andy looked down at the ground and then to April as if she'd offer him some support. Her wide eyes were boring into him and she had the tiniest frown cut into her face. "And if you wanted to get back together, but I guess that's not happening."

"Andy, please... please don't make it weird at work. We're done, okay?" she sighed and rubbed her forehead in tight circles with two fingers, that same look of consternation she always had when he screwed something up. Which was basically always, really. "It's over. Go back to hanging out with your... friend. Don't make it weird at the hospital."

"Bye," April almost bit down on the syllable, it came out so sharp.

When Ann walked away, Andy slumped where he sat. All of this was for nothing, wasn't it? Getting a job, making sure Burly didn't hate him, writing and performing the coolest rock songs in the world for a small group of Chang's coworkers, all of that was for naught but dismay. He turned to see April glaring down the way that Ann walked.

He spoke first after a moment of what he eventually realized was unbroken staring at the profile of April's face in that grimace. "Sorry you had to see that."

"It's okay," she whispered in the dark. By now they were the only two remaining in the field. "She seems kinda lame. You dated her?"

"Yeah, but Ann's cool," Andy shrugged. "She's right, though."

"Oh, I know she's right," April actually gave a dark laugh when he looked at her, confused. "What? You got a job at the same place she works! That's fucking weird, dude."

"Well, it was the last place I wanted to go but I couldn't get a job anywhere else," Andy turned to fully face April again. He much preferred this talk to the one with Ann. Here he wasn't being berated for being an idiot and doing all the wrong things, even if he had inadvertently made an ass out of himself. "I didn't want to. I just need... Burly, my guitar player, he gets mad when I don't pay the rent ever since Ann kicked me out of our house. I'll make sure I don't talk to her."

"Well, don't be _that_ weird. Just, I dunno... give her space, or something."

Andy arched an eyebrow in surprise, giving April a curious look. This was definitely not what he expected her to say. Then again, he wasn't sure she would tell him her name that first night or even come to see them in this shitty show that came out of nowhere. But here she was, giving him advice that was honestly what he should hear. He mulled it over for a second. Everything in him wanted to fight it, try to chase Ann or whatever. Try to win her back. But he knew April was right.

"Thanks," Andy mumbled.

"No problem," April said it with that tiny movement of her lips, rolling just a bit, and he could _tell_ that was her smile now. "Sorry to hear about rent. I'm moving out of my parents' soon and I'm kinda doing the same thing as you. I work at JJ's and it _sucks_ hearing about having to pay rent."

"Oh, you'll be fine," Andy waved her off. "You seem super smart."

"Really?" April laughed and her doe eyes bore into him, expectant.

"Yeah, sure, why not? You're pretty cool." April bit her bottom lip and looked away. If Andy knew better, or hadn't just gotten through with an awkward conversation with Ann he would think this is the part where he kissed April. But she was his friend, if that, and he didn't need to be weird to her too. "You mind if I come see one of your gigs and make fun of you guys?" Andy said it very quiet and watched April pull out a small, strange cigarette. "Because you guys suck so bad."

"I was wondering when you'd ask," she lit the joint up and took a deep hit. She let a bit of the smoke shoot out of her nostrils, chuckling, before inhaling the rest. She offered him the cigarette. "You want some?"

"Sure," Andy took the joint and enjoyed the odd, dirty taste of what she had and coughed. "Sorry, first one in a while..."

"Since when?"

"College," he said, handing it back to her.

"How old are you?" April asked while she smoked.

"Thirty," Andy scratched his chin for a second and nodded. "Yeah, thirty."

"Whoa," April's eyes lit up for a moment and she gave him that same smile. Something was there, he wasn't sure what. But there they were, two people getting high together after a show and she was giving him some _kind_ of look that Andy might have been able to process hours ago.

"You?"

"Twenty-one," she said and snuffed out the roach in the dirt.

"At least you can drink," he said with a laugh. "That'd be weird. Considering, uh, yeah I met you-"

"At a bar, yeah."

They quieted, and in the light of the moon as the remaining illumination Andy noticed that the way her eyes seemed to take every detail in with such ferocious intensity was... cute? The word escaped him. But he tried to push away the thought that his friend was attractive despite the obvious before him. And there was always something underneath all of that, something that seemed to actually not hate him and maybe they weren't just here to make fun of each other. Soon after that, April caught him staring and stood up in an instant.

Before she had, her head flicked to stare in a direction away from Andy. He knew that move and could almost sense the discomfort in the way he was almost ogling her. He wanted to apologize for it, and made to say something, but April got her word in first.

"Okay, well, I'll let you know when we have a show next," April made to walk away towards the parking lot. She turned and waved her hand in a short burst of motion before going off on her way.

Andy never got a chance to respond, instead sitting with a slight haze clouding his mind as April walked away. A minute later he saw a silver car pull out and drive away, leaving him alone there for real. All alone. He had Burly's place to go back to even if nobody was there waiting for him. Burly would be with his girlfriend again and the other guys had day jobs.

Just then he remembered, so did he. The next day, he would be going in for training and making sure that he stayed cool with Ann. After all, that was what April suggested, right? She did seem pretty smart.

And super cool.


	4. E Minor

**A/N:** _Contains a big misunderstanding that may be upsetting to read._

 _Warning for folks that can't read a difficult rejection in fic._

* * *

Working at Saint Joseph's proved to be a dreadfully boring job.

Throughout the first day, Andy acquainted himself with how to set straps on patients that didn't want to be helpful - something that apparently wasn't that common, unless an Eagletonian was hospitalized here - and everything from big crazy machines that shot laser beams through people's heads so they could see their brains or something, to the revelation that Andy would be handling old people poop. And shaving those old people too. He tried not to think about what could be worse than this, then remembered that there was a decent paycheck at the end of it all and sucked it up.

It wasn't that bad afterward, since all he really did was help a nurse put a cast on someone's broken wrist. There was no worry of jittery hands from him, so it went fairly well. As long as he didn't have to shovel crap into some kinda big fire in the basement, or however hospitals powered their lights, he didn't care. He even saw Ann at one point, nodded like he always saw the doctors do, and walked past her.

Easy!

And at the end of the day, he got to go home and sleep off the aches building up from sudden physical work that he didn't expect. That, and whatever tiny bit of anxiety built up over nurses talking about how the hospital was probably going to phase out Andy's job whatever that meant. He knew that phasing out was like time travel or teleportation so, maybe, he was going to become an experiment. Andy didn't sign up to turn into the Brundlefly, a fact he relayed to April over text one day. He was lounging at home, enjoying not hearing Burly complain about money for once. Honestly, he wasn't even sure where Burly was now. He sunk into the couch, staring at his phone. She responded exactly as he'd hoped.

 _OMG i love that movie. You'd make an awesome blindingly_

Andy stared at the last word for too long, trying to figure out what the hell April was saying before laughing at her followup.

 _Sry autocorrect. Y_

After a moment, he sent her a question. It had been a week since the show at the Landfill and their strange encounter. She had kept staring at him like she wanted him to do something, and he was staring at her like she was attractive and a viable person to date instead of someone who hated his band and thought he was an idiot and a creep. And that she wanted to turn into a mutated half-human, half-fly monstrosity apparently. He probably deserved it.

 _Hey_. _When u guys playing next?_

He sent the text and waited, hoping for a reply. In all honesty, he was surprised that April had even said a word to him after clearly making her uncomfortable after the Landfill show. Thank God he hadn't lost her yet, because there was something really fun about going to her shows and making fun of them.

The first time that he saw Flyover State, they played this eerie goth rock tinged with electronic music that he hadn't really paid any attention to at the bar other than to make fun of it. Now that he gave it a moment's honest listen, it wasn't that bad. Her voice was deep when she sang, not that it was high-pitched otherwise. It fit in with the samples and she borrowed a guitar from Andy, playing very plain and sparse chord progressions through a mountain of distortion he didn't know his own stuff was capable of producing. It was strange stuff but she stood tall on the stage of the local high school auditorium, looming over the dozen or so people from what was apparently the Pawnee-Eagleton area'ss minuscule goth scene collected there.

Her drummer, Derek the ex-boyfriend, was slender and played with a weird grip on the sticks. He didn't sound as powerful as Rivers nor was he as dynamic. For some reason that made Andy smile. The band's keyboardist-slash-sampler was a giant kid, stick-thin and clad in a black cloak. He never looked up from his instruments.

But April, he couldn't take his eyes off of her stage presence. She didn't do much other than lean down into the mic, mouth almost kissing the thing, as she stared down at one spot. Her playing was brash, the overwhelming distortion mixing with the instruments in such a kitschy way. He hated it, but when he told her about how it sounded she had given him that same smile.

It was worth it, then. Worth watching her like an angel of death promising some sort of end for everyone in the room in her lyrics, gruesome. He liked the way she looked holding that guitar, playing loud and angry music, and the way she sang did something strange to his heart that real art like Dave Matthews Band never could.

He ran back through that memory of seeing them for the first time again, remembering her staring at him in the final song the _entire_ way through its playing. He remembered those doe eyes caked in black makeup and wondered where her power to draw him to the stage without doing much else came from, and why his heart fluttered at the silly text messages they exchanged like just then. Just as his phone beeped, he left that memory.

 _Tonight. Wanna come?_

He answered in a second.

 _Duhhhhhh I wanna hear your band play more terrible songs_

 _Your band is worse than mine,_ she answered just then. _You guys just sing about parties and stupid shit._

 _You sing about dying and being sad_ , Andy answered back. _And you play with WAY 2 MUCH GAIN_

 _NEVER ENOUGH GAIN :)))))_

Andy laughed to himself took down the time and place they would be playing and finally looked up to see Burly sitting at the kitchen table just beside the couch. His friend was giving him a knowing look, but Andy just looked around as if Burly's girlfriend would appear from behind the couch. He had to be looking at somebody, right?

"What?" he finally asked and Burly laughed.

"Dude, you're texting that singer chick again, aren't you?" Burly was pretty smart. Not as smart as April, but he was almost there.

"Well, yeah. I was gonna go see Flyover State later tonight, you wanna come?"

"I can't pay for it," Burly admitted and went back to eating his sandwich.

"She gets us in for free, don't worry," Andy waved him off. It was true, she had pretty much smuggled him inside the venues they played and Andy made sure to do the same. It was easy to just call each other roadies or dying Make-a-Wish Foundation kids that always wanted to see tiny, unsigned indie bands.

"She gets _you_ in for free, dude."

"No, I'm sure she would..." Andy trailed off as he considered Burly's words and more importantly, his _tone_. "Wait, what are you trying to say? You are saying something other than what you're saying, right? I understand that now. I've worked at a hospital for a while, I've seen people do smart things."

"Dude, just ask this girl out on a date," Burly finally piped up and it was almost a shout. "You guys are obviously already going out, just make it official."

"Well... wait, no we're not!"

"Seriously? She borrows your guitars, dude. You go see each others' bands all the time and are _always_ the last people leaving together," Burly laughed to himself and set his food down. He turned in his chair to face Andy, who was sitting there and likely looking confused. "You know you haven't talked about Ann since you started hanging out with April?"

"Well, that's probably not... totally, all the way true-"

"Not once, other than when she showed up to give you some clothes you left at her place," Burly said with such a smug look on his face Andy wasn't sure how to react. He couldn't be right, could he? "Dude, you are so much happier with her than pining after someone that doesn't want you."

"Oh, April already told me to stop being creepy about Ann. She's right, y'know?" Andy shook his head and felt his phone vibrate. He'd check her message in a second. "She's so smart."

"You are so hopeless, man."

Burly waved him off, dismissive to Andy's defense that weakened with every word. He flipped open his phone again to see that it was in fact from April.

 _Can't wait to c u tonight_

* * *

When April saw Mouse Rat next, they played for a Valentine's Day dance sponsored by his boss, Chris Traeger. He was pretty sure Chris was his boss, considering he was a big shot in the HR department. He was Leslie's boss, at least, and Leslie was the coolest person he could ever go to. Andy went to her, explaining the Ann situation, and Leslie told him to keep doing what he was doing and keep his head low. But there was something there, then, about the warning. He could remember it vividly.

"Just so you know, Ann Perkins is an amazing person and I do not want you to hurt her," Leslie had said.

"Oh, I-"

"She's my best friend and you being a massive creep would be both a violation of every sexual harassment policy we have, that I take _very_ seriously," Leslie pointed at him like he had already done something instead of explain why things might seem weird between a nurse and him. He thought this was the _right_ thing to do? "And also of a blood pact with a friend to make sure she doesn't have to deal with jerks ever again."

"Blood pact-?"

"Thank you for asking how to proceed Andy. Keep your head down and as long as both of you are fine, I can't really write you up since this was before you worked here."

And that was the strange pretense for the Valentine's Day dance. April showed up wearing a black dress and Andy tried again to play cool, only complimenting her once by saying it was a super cool dress. Her response was just a shy smile and a thanks before she fled for the punch bowl. Leslie and her date, a skinny man with wild hair and the thinnest tie Andy had ever seen, greeted him before Mouse Rat played. He seemed okay, his name was Ben or Dan or something, but Andy was so focused on how April reacted to his little compliment that he could barely pay any attention to what they were saying.

The opener for Mouse Rat was a cover of that Sinatra song, _The Way You Look Tonight_. It was a bit more rock than the original, of course, but still soft enough for the elderly folks in attendance. The response was uproarious for such an ancient crowd, including April.

She didn't insult them at all that night despite Andy's prodding about the actual dad rock. When April was done, she let him drive her home and he let her out to her parents' house feeling like he was on top of the world.

* * *

The night of the next Flyover State show, Andy entered The Lunge again with as much confidence as if it was his show he meant to attend. After being carded again, this time without an argument from Andy, he made his way to the backstage where he knew the band was sitting around doing not much of anything. Their equipment was already set up on the stage. Few people were in the crowd, but that didn't seem to matter these three. When April spotted him in the green room, she stood up and awkwardly waited around for him to walk up to her and stand, just as awkward, in front of her.

They weren't that close, but judging by the way her sampler, Orin, and Derek watched, it was more intimate than anyone else wanted to see. They left for the stage twenty minutes before they were supposed to be playing.

"So, uh, sorry about what I said... about the whole not being able to wait to see you thing," April looked down quickly and then took a deep breath. "That was dumb. I can wait to see you."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Andy said. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the nervous sweat start to build up.

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence where Andy wondered if they should do something about whatever was between them when April spoke. Or, at least, she clearly meant to say something. Instead, she said half a word and it died in her throat as she sighed. Slumping down on the chair she previously sat in, April put her head in her hands.

Part of Andy wondered if she was going to start crying, this was all very surreal.

"Are you... okay?" he asked, unsure what to say.

"Yeah, I'm fine... Andy," she said his name like she meant to continue, looked up at him for a moment, and sighed. "Forget it."

"Well, I had something I wanted to talk to you about, and I figured we'll both get pretty drunk so I should ask you while you're, uh..." Andy fished around in his mind for the word April taught him. He knew the word, but didn't quite get the context until she explained while they were hammered drunk at a show not for either of their bands. "Ah, yeah... while, uh, you can still give consent."

April gave him a curious look and made to say something before clamping her mouth shut, hard. Her face turned a bit pale then, or at least lighter than her olive skin tone. "Um, what?"

"I thought... that is to say, I was thinking about you and about us, friends and stuff, being able to become as we should be, us, I mean-"

"What the hell are you talking about, Andy?" April interrupted with that deep chuckle that lasted for less than a breath.

"I wanted to know if, you would be okay with-" Andy looked up at the ceiling and shook his head rapidly like he was a bobblehead toy. He hoped it would rattle his brain into bravery. "I wanted to know if you wanted to perhaps go upon a date with me, as dates. Like a date. Like dating, but me and you."

April stared up at him and her face split into something he hadn't seen before. Sure, she gave him that awkward little roll of the lips often and sometimes she would have that shy thing that was a half smile and half embarrassed, half-timid something or other he wasn't sure what to make of, for better or worse.

This was a genuine, ear-to-ear smile from April and it about burst his heart to see it.

His whole body warmed over at the thought of this going well before she said anything.

"Fine," she said with a shaky, totally feigned show of stoicism before smiling again. "Yes! I'll go on a date with you. Thank God you asked, I was about to die over here."

"Really?" Andy giggled like a child at the thought that maybe this was building for the both of them in the same way. All thoughts of Ann were moot when compared to this lovely sensation.

"I gotta tell you something first, though-"

Just then, Derek shouted for her from the door leading out to the stage and April stood up with a sigh. From the sounds of it, the usual crowd was starting to file into the club. She tried to continue but then the owner-slash-host entered and beckoned for her. They booked bands just to have some entertainment when the only local DJ, some guy named Tom, refused to show up repeatedly. April gave Andy a nod, and told him later, before exiting for the stage.

* * *

After the show, which Andy only had positive comments for, April sat at the bar with him just like the first night they met.

Throughout the show his heart was shattering his ribs with hammer hits as he watched April up there. She looked at him occasionally, her face breaking its usual flatness for a quick flash of a smile or even a wink at one point. Because of the venue, she played without her guitar and they played songs that he was told were Depeche Mode covers. They all sounded the same to him, all sad. But he didn't let them get him down when April finished her set, the next band for the night lined up, and met him at the bar.

They shared beers in the loud environment.

"So, it's cool that I... like you?" Andy asked over the loud thumping bass of driving pop music.

April rolled her eyes and took a drink. "Yes, it's cool. I like you too," she said. She set her beer down and met his eyes only for a moment during this conversation. "You know a lot of cool movies, you play in a band, you make me laugh, you aren't an asshole..."

"Oh, well you play in awesome band and sing weird songs and you're super cute-"

April looked away and he caught a brief shake of her head before she looked back at him. "I think it'd be cool to date you and-"

Andy couldn't help himself, and they were dating now, right? She _was_ attractive - he tried to stop using the words hot or sexy in his head ever since he had those sexual harassment training days at Saint Joseph's - and he was lost in the way she smiled and laughed and how her hands looked playing guitar and the cute way she always called him a dork. It was all too much, so he kissed her.

She didn't hesitate to lean into the kiss, either. April's lips tasted like the stale beer they were drinking and she laughed and his mouth muffled it. He could taste the way she grinned before breaking away. Her face was bright red, happiness clear on it, either from the small amount of booze or the fact that they just kissed. Either way, Andy wanted to do it again. They didn't deepen the kiss, but his hand rode up her leg because he needed to feel her under his hands for once. He wanted the heat of her body to become familiar.

At that, she pulled away and squinted like she made a mistake. She sighed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to... Andy, I've been trying to explain this to you all night, but I keep getting interrupted," she fidgeted with her beer and he could suddenly feel all the nervous energy coming from her. It radiated like _fear_ from her and Andy wondered when he had fucked up so bad as to scare her away. "Sorry, this is hard."

"Oh, I'm sorry. About... touching you," he looked down at the bar.

"It's okay. But let me finish," she drained the rest of the beer in front of her and tapped the bar for the bartender to catch wind of her clearly urgent need for more. Andy's heart beat faster, anxious. His skin crawled with a shared nervous energy from April. Had she made a mistake? Was that what this was? "Andy, I thought that was kiss was fun and... nice."

"Oh, cool."

"And it's not that you touched me, nothing like that," she continued and her voice broke out of the confident, static tone of April and fell along the nervous edge. He hated that, hated that she felt like this was hard to share. It scared him, too. "That was nice, I guess. But, Andy I gotta set up some boundaries."

"Cool, cool," Andy nodded.

"A very, super important one, okay?" she kept extending this and Andy wasn't getting annoyed, but extremely worried.

"Okay..."

"I'm asexual," she blurted out and took a drink of the beer handed to her by the bartender. After drinking half of it, she gasped for air and continued, "Ace, eh? Capital-A, asexual."

Andy sat there for a second and tried to process what he had just heard. After all of this, she could only come up with that? He felt the urge to laugh, but held it back. He wasn't sure _what_ she even meant.

"So... you reproduce without a mate?" Andy asked, confused. He overheard something like that in eighth grade biology and for some reason the factoid stuck.

April looked over at him, though to call it a look is too kind. It was the kind of disappointed grimace laced with hatred that you give to someone committing a vile act in front of your face. She looked like she wanted to hit him. April shook her head and took another drink before spinning her stool to stare him straight in the face.

"Andy, I'm ace," she repeated.

"Like the playing card?"

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" she scoffed. "No, like I'm not... into sex. Like, I'm not sexually attracted to you."

"Oh, see if you wanted to turn me down that's way easier to say," Andy could understand that, the hurt in his chest barely catching up to the confusion otherwise. "You didn't have to make something up."

"Dude? Seriously?" April blinked rapidly and pushed him in the chest. She stood up and made to walk away.

"What? Now _I'm_ the bad guy?" Andy couldn't believe this.

"Andy! I just..." April's eyes were bright, he realized, with tears. "I thought you were cooler than this."

"Wait," he stood up and followed her to the entrance. When April turned, her eyes were clearly wet with those tears running free. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't..."

"Fuck you, Andy," she pushed him again and growled. "I'm _serious_. I was serious. You were cool."

"But, I don't get it... how do you..." he trailed off and tried to touch her shoulder, to hold her and make things okay. April slapped his hand away. "But, I thought you were just trying to let me down easy with, uh, whatever that was. I didn't think you were _serious_."

"Oh my God, dude. Stop talking," April wiped at her face and started to turn again. Before she had fully faced away, she said in a shaky, raspy voice, "Don't talk to me."

"I'm... uh, confused."

"That's fucking clear," April growled and he could hear her voice break up with those tears he had no way to deal with right then. "Goodbye."

She stomped out of the bar without another word, leaving Andy with his mouth agape and searching for something to say. He stood at the bar, her stool practically still wobbling from the sudden loss of her weight holding it there, and a beer stuck to his hand. Everything was so right just a moment before all of that. What on Earth had just happened?


	5. F Major

**A/N:** _Contains a long conversation about this AU's version of April and her asexuality. Includes sex discussion. Give our boy a chance, folks._

* * *

Every single time Andy tried to text April, no response. Any call went to her voicemail that he was certain that got deleted. He never heard from her after that night in the Lunge, after she told him that she was asexual. That whole night, Andy tried to figure what that could even mean. The whole time his chest felt ready to burst, his heart shredded by what he had done. And what _had_ he done? It was all so bizarre to him. He had no clue how to deal with this and what he was supposed to do, only that he wanted to make things right. Somehow. He had to do it because throughout those dark hours he swore he could feel his heart shriveling and had to wonder: if this is how he felt, how must April feel?

He didn't say a word of that to anyone, at least until he was at work a week after that night and Ann confronted him. Of all people, it had to be her.

"Andy, are you okay?" she asked during his lunch break. She passed by the little room he always stole away into, hopeful for a moment's respite from the confusing thoughts.

"Yeah, sure. Why?" he asked through a mouthful of sandwich. He swallowed and stared up at the concern draped along Ann's face.

"Well, Burly and I were talking-"

"You talk to Burly?"

"Well, yeah. He plays in your band," she said with a laugh. Ann set the metal clipboard in her hands down on the table with Andy's food. "Look, he was telling me that you've been depressed again. It's not about... us, right?"

"No, it's not," he put his sandwich down and sighed. Ann sat down across from him and pursed her lips, that face he knew well. She was trying to help, but didn't know how. He had gotten used to it and took advantage of it too many times to count in their relationship. "It's not your problem, don't worry about it."

"Andy, I said I wanted us to be friends, okay?" she said as she leaned back in the chair. "So, I'm being a friend. What's wrong?"

"April kinda... broke up with me," he laughed when Ann gave him a sad smile. "Wait, that's not right. We weren't really dating. I had just asked her that night then she broke up with me that night."

"Dude, that blows," Ann grimaced like she had seen something worse than all her years in nursing combined. Horrified, even. "Sorry."

"It was just so confusing, I... she started making stuff up and lying to me," he tried to run his mind through everything again. None of it made a lick of sense to him. He started to say something and then stopped when Ann squinted her eyes in confusion. He'd have to really compose this one correctly. "She was just saying stuff and it sounded like she didn't wanna be with me or something. But it was all weird."

"Like what?"

"Well... promise not to say anything about this to April?" he asked Ann because if they were going to be friends, he needed to learn to trust her. This would be a great start.

"Scout's honor," Ann said.

"Okay, well," Andy chuckled as he spoke, "she told me she was ace... ace-something. Asexual! And then she got super pissed when I told her it was weird. I super like her, but she just... said stuff and I was really confused."

Andy looked up, expecting Ann to take his side and explain to him how to move on from this situation. His heart still yearned for April, true, but if she didn't want to be with him despite their kiss being _nice_ and the time they spent together being _just fun_ then he knew what had to be done. So, he needed Ann's help.

Instead of that, her eyes were wide and her mouth was in a small circle. She blinked twice and shook her head. "Oh, Andy... you gotta go and apologize, _now_."

"For what?"

"Dude, she told you she was-" Ann looked out into the hallway and whispered the next few words. "She said she was _ace_ and you just laughed in her face?"

"I didn't laugh... that much-"

"Holy cow, man, you fucked up _bad_ ," Ann put her hands over her mouth and the scandalized look started to sink in.

"Wait, she wasn't just trying to let me down?"

"No!" Ann was much louder than she intended and a gangly doctor peeked in. He made to comment but Ann just shouted at him, "Go away Merv. This is important."

She pushed the door closed in front of his face and Andy just slammed his forehead down on the table. "Oh no, oh no... did I make fun of her?"

"Andy you basically insulted her to her very freakin' core," Ann shook her head again and blinked away the obvious shock. "Okay, okay. We can make this right, or at least you can keep your dignity."

"How? Please, Ann. I'm so confused," he was starting to lose focus on everything else in life. He couldn't help set a cast and when he helped an old lady to the bathroom he got snippier with her than he had ever been with anyone in his life. This was all so overwhelming but now? "And I can't imagine what April is going through... I-I just kissed her and I touched her, I think? She wanted to let me know and then she cried-"

"You made _her cry_!?" Ann slammed her palms on the table and laughed a dry thing without any humor at all. By now the weird doctor, Merv apparently, had left. "Andy, okay. Really, really fast lesson on sexual orientation, okay?"

"But she said no sex-"

"Andy, she's asexual. That is super-duper real, okay? It's a whole... range of stuff, but let's start here," Ann sat up straight in her chair and Andy followed suit. This felt like a class all of a sudden and if it would get April to talk to him again, then it would be worth the tutoring. "Let's start there, she said no sex. She doesn't experience sexual attraction, all right?"

"Okay, I think I get it."

"Okay, cool," Ann smiled and then slapped the table hard with one hand, the genial smile erased. "Now that you understand it's real, what the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

"Uh..."

"You seriously let this poor girl expose something so vulnerable... so beautiful to you, and you just-" Ann rolled her fingers through the air like imaginary dirt was being examined by an imaginary Indiana Jones. She scoffed. Loud. "You are so _stupid_ , Andy. Go and apologize to her."

"But, she... I-I'd have to go to her parents' house and-"

"Go. _Now_ ," Ann commanded and Andy stood up without another word. "Repair your massive, massive mistake before I have to shake some sense into you."

"But what if she doesn't want me back?" Andy asked, letting the fear he felt ride his voice in a shaky stutter.

"Then you'll have to live with that. This isn't about you," Ann shook her head. "The least you can do is apologize to her for being such a douche. This is about making sure she's okay, okay?"

"Okay!"

"Okay," Ann repeated, pointed towards the door.

Andy swung the door open and barged through a throng of nurses and doctors, shouting apologies, as he made his way to his car. He would potentially be fired, maybe, but right now that didn't matter. Right now, he needed to find his way to April's house and apologize. Ann was right. This wasn't about him and he slapped himself silly in the car as a reminder of the major fuck-up he'd committed and almost never went through resolving. He had _hurt_ her, so bad. She ghosted him for a good reason and now he needed to find her and at least let her know he never knew this stuff before, never meant to hurt her, and yet... she was.

He needed to make this right. If not for him, then at least for her.

* * *

When he pulled into the April's parents' driveway, Andy could feel that excitement from playing with Mouse Rat again surge through him. This was it, a make-or-break moment. Maybe she wouldn't take him back, but now he had a new mission: to make her okay with him, at the very least. He had to navigate past a moving truck and hoped beyond hope that she hadn't already moved out. Maybe his failures and denigration had pushed her to the edge.

The days gone past had taught him to fear this loss. April had shown him so many ways to enjoy his life again, to experience love for music and friendship once more, and now he had gone and turned those flowers to dust. Everything she had done for him he'd repaid in destruction. He deserved everything he got and more, whatever it meant. He didn't deserve her forgiveness but she deserved all he could afford as penitence.

He stepped out and approached the door. When he knocked, a girl shorter and younger than April appeared.

"You Andy?" she asked, her tone similar to April's.

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to April and-"

"My sister doesn't want to see you," she didn't raise anything in her voice at all, but the door slammed shut regardless.

Standing there, confused, Andy took out his phone and began texting April. He let her know he was outside her door and wanted to explain, wanted to apologize for everything and that he was sorry. He sent the _Sorry, I didn't understand you_ text twice on accident and made to write an apology for it when the door opened. In front of him, April looked absolutely fine other than the slightly sunken eyes looking through him. He let out the breath jolting him with anxiety over this whole situation.

"Oh my God, thank you. I'm sorry," he got it out instantly. He wanted that to be the way this started their conversation.

"Explain, now. You have five seconds," April stated.

"Okay, well I looked it up and I'm super-"

"Five."

"Sorry that you told me all of that and that I was such a dickhead to you-"

"Four," she said through gritted teeth.

"I made fun of you, really. I insulted your, uh, orientation and it wasn't right and I wish I could take it back but I can't, so I wanna apologize," he closed his eyes, sure that despite his rapid-fire recital of the apology running through his head he had run through his five seconds. April made no noise, but she could probably close the door without him noticing at this moment. He would open his eyes and she would be gone forever. Forever hating him, forever a pale reminder of what he had ruined. So, he kept talking, imagining it was the door. "I hurt you. Bad. I know. It was mean and you were... open to me and I just screwed it up super bad. I know you hate me. I just hope you know I don't hate you for being who you are."

He took a deep breath and could feel all that weight just get heavier because surely she hadn't heard this. She couldn't hear through doors, right?

"Andy, open your eyes," that same, weak voice commanded him. When he did so, April was standing there with those beautiful eyes blinking away those terrible tears again. "This doesn't make what you did okay."

"I know! It was like I was, like, erasing you as a person, or something," he remembered what Ann had texted him. It made sense. If she was asexual, then it was part of her and he was acting like she didn't exist fully as a person. So, he got it. But he needed to make sure April understood that he didn't hate her or hate who she was. "I dunno, Ann had to explain it to me."

"Ann? Like, your ex?"

"Yeah, she almost beat me up when I told her I made you cry," Andy said with a weak, unsure laugh.

April opened the door just an inch wider. "I like that," she said without a trace of a smile.

"April, I know you aren't gonna wanna date me anymore since I was basically the worst person on the planet to you," Andy slumped his shoulders, that weight started to remove itself. But, again, this wasn't about him and he would have to continue. Make her feel like she's safe. Safe. "So, you can make fun of me or call me a dick. Or a jerk, or whatever. I just wanna make sure you know that I don't hate... you. Y'know, who you are is important and I'm a dick."

"Can you come inside?" April whispered and Andy followed her without a word.

She led him up the stairs of her house to a bedroom with most of the things packed away. Right then he could almost feel the hole in his heart pulling apart. The bed was all that remained and there were several boxes already packed up with labels on them in black marker. The sounds of the other girl's footsteps sounded close to the door when April closed it behind them.

"Go away, Natalie," she yelled into the wood and sighed.

April sat down on the spring mattress of the bed. She didn't look at Andy, picking at her bare wrists. He tried to focus on the logo on her t-shirt and, after deciding it was unreadable, shook himself out of the very real possibility that she might think he's staring. After all this, he couldn't blame her. She never looked up during this and Andy felt the reality of what was dawning before him. She was leaving and this was going to be a hateful goodbye he deserved. Resolved to take it, Andy clicked his tongue and sat down on the floor with legs crossed. He met April's eyes when she gave him a look that questioned whatever he was doing.

He nodded, hoping she would say _anything_.

"Andy, do you know what you did at The Lunge?" she asked it slowly like he didn't understand any of the words by themselves, let alone strung together. "What you did to me?"

"I insulted you and-"

"You belittled something that is so important to me, okay? That was really, really... not cool," she finished with a restrained voice. Something she was holding back that rose in volume as she spoke. "I was- I am so, so... did you think you'd just come back and make it okay?"

"Not for me, no. I just wanna make you feel-"

"Feel what exactly? Angry? Depressed? Lonely?" April sighed. "Andy, do you understand what it took for me to know that you liked me, and that kiss... I did enjoy it. I liked getting close with you, honestly. Then you just fucking blasted my heart to the moon and pretended like it was a simple mistake."

She wasn't looking at him very much. When she started to speak of depression, of loneliness, she didn't meet his eyes once.

"I'm so sorry, I really am. I don't know how to say it better," Andy really wasn't sure even as he spoke. This was so complicated and that was only for him. "Can I fix this?"

"Why would you want to? You yourself said it wasn't a real thing," she finally looked at him as she said that. Maybe it was comfort knowing that he wanted to fix it. He took note. "So why do you care?"

"Because I really, really like you and I don't want you to feel like this. Like... angry, depressed, or lonely," he repeated her in the hopes that she was being honest and baring that for him after letting him see so much of her and crushing her underneath his foot. So callously, like he didn't care so much for her. "You are, like, the most amazing person on the planet. And I... you saved me. I paid that back by being such an idiot."

"Yes, you did," April affirmed exactly that he failed her. He knew it but for some reason hearing her say it drew a smile from him. "But this is a decent start."

"I'm serious, too. If you don't want me back in your life, okay. I just wanna fix this."

"Do you want to be back in my life?" she asked, her giant singing voice deep in register and haunting replaced with this timid thing that hurt his heart to hear. But, he accepted the gift of her opening up for him with great thirst. "Do you want to be... with me, still? After I told you that? You still want me?"

"April, I was being honest. I think you are amazing and I wanna be with you," the words fell out of him without so much as a second thought. They were what he felt condensed into some kind of message for her. A hopeful one. "I didn't get it, I'm sorry. I wanna apologize every single second of every single day for what I did. I hope you'll forgive me for that stupid mistake."

"Y'know, apologizing that much would get _so_ annoying," April's lips rolled and he knew what was coming. He gave a cautious curl of his lips, a hopeful grin. "Please don't do that."

"So...? You're okay with taking me back?"

"We dated for like an hour, I think we can call this starting over," she chuckled.

"Would you prefer that?" he asked and watched her eyes dart to his, glistening for a moment. She sniffed and blinked, rapidly. "I, uh... would you be okay with that?"

"Yeah, I would," April nodded and she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. After a second, she cleared her throat. "So, let's start over from that night, okay?"

"Okay... where was I?" Andy stood up and paced for a second trying to recall how he had asked her to be with him. Take two! "I wanted to know if you wanted to date me! Yeah, that one. Do you wanna go on a date with me? So we can be, like, a couple?"

"That sounds good," April spoke through the buildup in her throat, hollowing her voice out. He wondered how hard she had cried that night he crushed her, what she thought of herself then and what she had done.

"So... you had-?"

"Something to tell you," she finished for him.

"Cool, I'm all ears, then," Andy sat down again, this time on one of the bigger boxes labeled _clothes_. His weight almost crushed the cardboard box if the densely packed clothing inside hadn't been there to soften the blow. "What's on your mind?"

"Well, Andy, I actually have something important to tell you," she laughed and raised her hands above her shoulders like she didn't expect to be put in this situation. "I'm asexual!"

"Oh, really! So... you like, don't have sex with people?" Andy asked, this time genuinely curious and enjoying the way she laughed at his playful tone.

"Okay, we need to clear that up, actually," she said with that same chuckle. At least she could feel safe enough to laugh at his poor jokes. "It's not that we _won't_ have sex, but it's gotta be special, y'know? And I can... do it. I just don't have the urges you probably have."

"Huh, really? I thought you didn't, um... experience sexual attraction," Andy read from that note stored away in his mind and hoped for the best. "Like, with other people."

April nodded and he could see those tears flowing freely. They didn't burn in his eyes like she was crying from sadness though. "That's very good. And I don't, no."

"So, I'm just really cool and not hot?"

"I mean, I can tell you're hot dude," she again chuckled and wiped at her face. Without thinking, Andy crossed that distance and was near her, hoping to be close. She sat where she was stock still but didn't leave the spot. "I can appreciate that you're attractive, like a work of art I guess."

"Oh, really? Like one of those naked sculptures?" he wiggled his eyebrows and April shook her head, that devilish little grin still on her face. "Am I super buff like them?"

"Dude, shut up!" she pushed him on his arm but he didn't feel the hate from that night there. "No, it's just... have you ever seen someone you don't wanna have sex with but can appreciate that they're very attractive?"

"Oh yeah, like Chris!" Andy made sure to clarify that when she gave him a curious look. "He's my boss, I guess. Or he's Leslie's boss but Leslie isn't my boss..."

"Andy?"

"Oh, sorry. He's really hot, but I don't think I'd wanna have sex with him," Andy said while nodding, processing the information. This made so much sense. "I get it. So, you can tell when people are hot you just don't have that... thing for 'em?"

"I don't feel that pull, sure," April nodded.

"So do you like sex? Or is that a dumb question, I promise I don't mean it to be like that," Andy was trying to parse this conversation like a dangerous mine field and at the end he would be rewarded with absolution from her hatred. So far, so good. So what, though? If he fucked it up along the way it was just as bad. "Sorry, that was dumb."

"It's not. I don't mind sex, I guess," April shrugged and sat back on the bed on her palms. "I've only had sex with one person."

"Oh, is that how you knew?"

"Nah, I never really felt like I wanted to do it, ever," April spoke so clearly and her face seemed to be drying. Even if they were tears of happiness, Andy didn't want to run the risk of ruining her all over again. He knew she was stronger than that, but still. "But I thought it was important then and didn't really get why I didn't care."

"Okay... so, you're okay with sex but you don't feel sexually into people."

"See, you do get it," April tapped his arm again and he liked that contact.

"So, when I kissed you and touched you..." he winced, imagining how perfect was her warmth. He needed to fight that away now, no matter what she said. "I'm so sorry."

"No, no. Don't apologize," April sat back up and faced him fully, then. "I like all that stuff, just not for the same reason. I liked kissing you because it felt like I was getting closer to you, y'know? That physical intimacy... that closeness is real, and I _love_ that."

"Oh, so it wasn't wrong? I mean, I thought we were having fun," he smiled again, relieved to know that his enjoyment wasn't totally one-sided.

"I wanted to kiss you because it made _us_ feel real for me," April reached out and touched his hand, held it in hers and Andy's heart skipped a beat at the contact. "And kissing you was fun. I didn't mind what you were doing with your hand either."

"Wait, what?" Andy held her hand and liked that, he liked kissing her, and he's sure that if she wanted it their closeness in sex would be fun and life-changing. If she wanted it, and now he was getting confused again. "You... uh, liked it? Like, I thought you didn't-"

"I didn't _mind_ it, I said," April repeated herself but only her voice grew hard. She still held his hand, soft fingers in his. "I still, y'know, work. I'm a human, I can get turned on."

"But-"

"Like, literally turned on. Like, biological Ready-To-Go Time turned on," she widened her eyes and nudged her head downward at an angle. Maybe this was supposed to be a hint but he didn't quite get it. When he just shook his head she sighed. "I can get wet."

"Ah, right," Andy nodded and grinned, feeling his face blush deep red. "So, when I... were you, uh-?"

"Andy, let's not talk about that night anymore, okay?"

"Gotcha," he got that hint at the very least.

Neither spoke for a moment after that, still holding hands. He was starting to sweat but April only squeezed harder. April sidled on the bed until they were almost connected and tugged on his hand. He turned to look at her and April leaned up from his strange seat to leave him with a light press of her lips.

Now he tasted the salt of her tears and lifted a hand to wipe at the freshest strokes of wetness along her face. She moved in to deepen the kiss, opening for him and sharing the taste of tongues. She was like fire, chaotic and wild, but he wanted to let it roam and not capture it. He wanted to explore the taste of flame in his life when she squeezed his hand and her other made its way to his hair. He couldn't help but wonder though, was this okay? So Andy slowed them down, pulled away and watched April bite her lip with an impatient huff of breath.

"Is this okay?" Andy asked her.

"Yes," she nodded. "Kissing you is pretty cool."

"Wanna do it again, then?" Andy said with a chuckle.

"Totally," she responded with another kiss that felt like all that fire and more.

He had wandered to her shirt, cautious, and stayed there waiting for her. She took his wrist in hers and let it rest on her hip underneath the fabric. Her hands were so cold, but the heat of her body was so intense there that he pushed further against her lips. She moaned into his mouth, the flavor of her reaction so sublime then. He wanted to move further up, he wanted to know the feel of all of her in his hands, but stayed where she let him be. When he moved an inch, she broke their kiss for a second to nod. He felt upward and stayed there with his palm wide along her stomach.

"Is _this_ okay?" he asked again, pointed.

"What are you feeling right now?" she asked, panting. She leaned in to kiss, refusing him an answer for a moment.

"Close," he was honest when they broke apart. "Connected."

"Me too."

Andy smiled and returned to her waist, eager to know the shape of her back when he kissed her again. April moved closer until she was practically sitting in his lap. His fingertips explored the shape of her spine and how it dipped, how her back curved when he did so by instinct, and how she bit his lip and moved her hands through his hair, clawed the fat of his back. Almost as soon as they began, they stopped. April's lips left his and she looked in his eyes, one hand moving to his cheek. She held her palm there and smiled.

When they broke apart their lips were swollen, used, and Andy had never felt better in his life. April stood up and straightened out her shirt.

"So," she started.

"So," he mimicked, standing up and straightening his shirt like she had.

She only rolled her eyes in response to that action. "I'm moving, if you didn't notice."

"Oh yeah, I wanted to say something-"

"I got a tiny apartment at the Eagleton border, apparently nobody wants to live there," she looked like it was the most confusing thing in the world. "I mean, I get it but wouldn't you _want_ to leave this town?"

"That makes so much sense, babe."

April's eyebrows shot up. "Babe?"

"Oh, sorry. That was... uh, sorry. It just came out," Andy grimaced and bit his knuckle in expectation to retaliation.

"Nah, I like it... _babe_ ," April walked forward and slinked her arms around his waist. "So... I'm moving and you're still living with Burly."

"Yeah, well I can pay rent."

"Yes, so..." April trailed off and looked him square in the eye.

"Yeah, and-" a lightbulb practically exploded in Andy's head then. "Oh! Really?"

"I mean, it solves both of our problems, right? I could use some help with the rent since JJ doesn't really pay waitresses that well," she hugged him closer, pulled him into a sweet embrace. "And you said Burly hated having you there, which is lame. So, don't be lame and live with me. Is that cool?"

He looked down at her and grinned.

"That sounds so awesome," he exclaimed and leaned down to kiss those smiling lips of hers he already missed.


	6. Epilogue

_Three months later_

The ding of a microwave going off alerted Andy to the fact that he was drifting off into a nap. Almost jumping up, he ran to the microwave and dug out his prize: one of those shitty microwave pizzas. Going to the grocery store was a hassle that week and since there was a stock of these things building up, Andy knew exactly how to enjoy his day.

Just before he made to flip the whole thing in half and turn it into a very disgusting, half-cooked pizza sandwich, a voice protested, "You gonna share that or what?"

April Ludgate was staring him down, still in her pajamas at three in the afternoon. Andy grinned and looked down before flipping the pizza over like he had intended. She huffed out a scandalized noise until the split the new sandwich down the middle with a knife in a nearby drawer. He tossed the dirty utensil in the pile of dishes he meant to take care of later that day. He handed her one half of the microwaved banquet.

"Here ya go, babe," he said with a grin.

"I accept your apology for cooking without me," she replied and took a bite before blowing out the hot air and exclaiming her pain.

"Just got done," Andy said nonchalantly and watched her wave her hand in front of her mouth. "Sorry, shoulda told you that, huh?"

"No, I see how you work. I see your moves," she set the pizza down on his plate and leaned up on her toes to kiss him. Her lips were hot, tongue scorching in his mouth. "I appreciate the underhanded tactics."

"Well, I uh... appreciate you," he said with a grin.

"Love ya," April answered.

He could feel his _appreciation_ growing but tamed himself for now.

Ever since he had moved in, things were, well, _normal_. Not that Andy knew what to expect but in the end they filled their home with comforts. The couch was a gift from Burly, the same stinky mess of pillows that Andy slept on for what seemed like years and April wanted the instant he offered. She didn't give him much of a reason but he caught her taking naps on the couch instead of their bed whenever he was away at practice or got home just after her shift at JJ's. He learned a lot about April in those ways. It was in how she liked to have a little spot for her musical collection - a combination of vinyls organized by artist and release date along with piles of CD's that he knew she didn't really use - separate from his guitars. She didn't mind when he forgot to clean the bed of breadcrumbs or repair the mussed-up covers.

The way that she liked to hold him at night, nestled in his arms, he learned too.

Her hands explored further along his body late one night after a long session of horror movies interspersed with making out, laughing at the on-screen gore fests, and challenging one another to increasingly silly games. Truth or dare was easy - April dared him to eat the two-month old jalapeno pepper sitting on kitchen countertop, Andy wanted to know the truth about where the scar on her lower back came from - but the real difficulty was the strip poker.

Despite all his appearance to the contrary that he knew just exuded everything about him, Andy was a terrible poker player. It didn't take long before he was in his boxers and April was only missing her shoes and jacket.

It just happened, and he hated how many times he asked her - _Is this okay?_ \- but she kept going and before he knew it, that stupid couch he spent so long on in Burly's house and now was theirs became the site of the first time they had sex. It was slow, patient, and throughout Andy played to her pace until the unraveling of her around him. She smiled afterward, kissed him on his sweaty cheek and held tight onto him.

"That... did you, uh, like it?" Andy had asked, unsure what to say to her.

"You understand what I mean now?" April had said through a stifled yawn, kissing his chest.

"Yeah... it was pretty fun, and I..." Andy had looked down between them and then felt himself blush, smiling again. "I love you."

April's smile then, the gradual build from shy thing to all teeth and followed with a kiss told him that everything was okay.

So, in the present, Andy controlled himself. They made love or whatever but only when it felt _right_. Sometimes, April initiated and seemed enthralled in him and sometimes he did when they were particularly boisterous or one of them had an amazing show. He learned, as he should have known long ago, that it was just another aspect of their intimacy. And he loved it.

"Hey, I've gotta get to practice," Andy said through the mouthful of pizza-sandwich.

"Aw, man. Already? I was hoping we could hang out and cuddle," April pouted but even though she could usually sway him so easily with that face he needed to be on time for this one.

"Burly wants to do one more rehearsal before we go into the studio," Andy hugged her closer with one arm, the other helping him devour the food. "Sorry babe, I'll be back in, like, two hours. We can cuddle then."

"Promise?"

"I promise," he said and punctuated it with a kiss while chewing his pizza.

"Eww," April groaned and tried to run away.

He was too fast though, he kept peppering her with disgusting pizza lips and April laughed, trying to fight him off. By the time he had finished his food, she was covered in sauce on the cheeks, neck, and lips and Andy wanted to stay for the rest of the night. But, still, he _did_ have obligations. When April finally called off their war, his food gone and gross microwaved food mouth clean, she moved to the kitchen to wipe away his attacks. She yelled to him through the small apartment.

"I've got practice tomorrow, were we doing anything then?" she smudged the red sauce along her lips and gave an aggravated noise.

"Grocery shopping probably," he shrugged.

"Well, don't wait up on me for that one," she said with a laugh and Andy joined her. "Just make sure to get me that-"

"Almond milk, I know," he said and nodded.

After collecting his guitar and slinging the thin strip to the fabric case over his shoulder, Andy made his way to leave. Before he could go, April was there and kissed him quickly on the cheek before settling down back into the couch.

"See ya later," she half-sang it and looked up at him, her eyes wanting to tell him to stay anyways. "Love you."

"Love you too," he answered and blew her a kiss that she caught in a balled fist and left stay like that, all curled up.

So, yeah, after everything was said and done Andy had to admit that life had taken a pretty good turn ever since he met April.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Thank you for reading this fic. I hope everyone had some fun. If you enjoyed the fic, or didn't, consider leaving a review!_

 _Featuring sex-positive ace!April. That's just how asexual April formed in my head._


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